What happened to A Team tours? Or inviting A and development teams from other countries. If i am not mistaken the last A Team tour was to India in July/August last year and we also invited a West Indian development team. It just doesnt seem enough. A Team cricket is vital as it keeps the player pipeline strong. Good chance to test emerging players, players on the fringe, underperforming players, youngsters etc.

Now we have had some good finds in BPL- Shabbir, Shamsur, Milon etc. Its always best to give these guys a go with A Team before selecting them for the NT. This way they rectify any shortcomings they might have, work harder, try to prove themselves even more. Knowing our selectors they ll probably just push them into the NT. They underperform and they get dropped.

Note India is always arranging matches like India Vs Rest Of India. India Vs India A V India B. Even if we cant tour abroad or invite teams, at least such matches will work.

So hope BCB organizes more A Team, Development XI tours to give the emerging players a run. And now that BCB is saving some $ by not hiring a high profile coach, they could use that to hire a good Under 19 coach and a permanent A Team coach. If they dont want to look abroad, at least good for some good local coaches. Aminul, Salahuddin would be excellent choices.

Originally Posted by ms01
I would like to see BCB arrange A Team tours against England Lions, South Africa A, India A and Pakistan A team. The young one really needs to start playing overseas or least at home.

Yes all of these guys need to play a lot of A Team cricket before a place in the NT. Would add Mominul to the list from the emerging players. Wont be bad to give Mosharraf Hossain a go. Also players on the fringes-Junaid, Imrul, Hom. Instead of discarding players completely like we used to in the past keep these guys involved.

A team is obviously very important and we are looking at trying to play two series per year. The strength of our domestic cricket is also critical in developing strong International players so we have to be conscious of not watering down the domestic teams by playing A team or Academy type cricket during the domestic summer. This then narrows the window of time when we can host teams and when the other countries can host us. Ideally we play A team cricket around late April, early May before it rains and then again in August September overseas somewhere. We then have to negotiate with other countries who are all in a similar situation and due to many of them having stronger domestic structures they dont tend to invest as much in A team cricket.

rest assured though, we are working on ensuring there is the right balance of A team and Academy match opportunities and time to actually do some of the behind the scenes development work on skills, techniques and physical conditioning.

Thanks for the info coach. Whats your take on some of the finds of BPL, and those performing at domestic level- Shamsur, Shabbir, Marshall Ayub, Anamul, Mominul. Its finally good to see players competing for a spot in the NT. But hope to see them play a lot of A Team cricket, get coaching at High Performance Unit before they are put into the deep end of the ocean. Too often we push our players when they are not ready.